Ugonna Onyenso won’t play in Kentucky basketball’s GLOBL JAM opener due to injury
.JPG "Ugonna Onyenso had 16 blocked shots in just 110 minutes on the court as a freshman at Kentucky last season.")
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Kentucky at the 2023 GLOBL JAM
Click below to read all of the coverage from the Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com from the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team’s gold-medal winning performance in Canada.
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Kentucky center Ugonna Onyenso will not play in the Wildcats’ first game at the GLOBL JAM basketball tournament in Canada on Wednesday after suffering an ankle injury in a Tuesday scrimmage.
UK Coach John Calipari announced on Twitter that Onyenso would miss the Cats’ matchup with Germany.
“At the end of yesterday’s scrimmage, Ugonna hurt his ankle. He’s not going to play today and we will have to see if he can do anything the rest of the week,” Calipari said. “I am proud of how he played yesterday against Africa. He had six blocks and impacted the game in a positive way.”
Onyenso — a 6-foot-11 sophomore — was injured during the Wildcats’ closed-door scrimmage Tuesday afternoon, the day before the official start of the international exhibition tournament in Toronto. The Cats are scheduled to play teams from Germany, Canada and Africa this week before Sunday’s medal game.
Onyenso’s absence will leave UK undermanned in the frontcourt, with fellow post player Aaron Bradshaw already sidelined with a foot injury that caused him to miss the Canada trip altogether. Calipari confirmed a couple of weeks ago that Bradshaw had recently undergone a medical procedure on his foot, which was injured during the McDonald’s All-American Game in March. Bradshaw did not travel to Canada as he continues to recover. Calipari did not put a firm timetable on his return to the court, though the UK coach said he did not expect the five-star recruit to miss any of the 2023-24 season as a result of the setback.
Onyenso’s trip to the GLOBL JAM was supposed to be a showcase for the second-year Wildcat, after he sat most of last season behind returning national player of the year Oscar Tshiebwe.
With Onyenso and Bradshaw both out, recent West Virginia transfer Tre Mitchell is the Cats’ biggest player at 6-9 and 225 pounds. Aside from Mitchell, the tallest (healthy) players on UK’s roster are freshmen Jordan Burks and Justin Edwards, listed at 6-9 and 6-8, respectively, but both of those newcomers are officially designated as guards.
Obviously, Calipari will have to get creative with his lineups during this trip, with a more “small ball” approach highlighting Kentucky’s talented (but young) backcourt looking to be the most likely scenario for the Wildcats in the short term.
GLOBL JAM
Men’s games in the GLOBL JAM, an international basketball showcase in Toronto featuring Kentucky as the USA representative:
Wednesday
1:30 p.m.: United States vs. Germany (CBS Sports Network live)
8 p.m.: Canada vs. Africa
Thursday
1:30 p.m.: Africa vs. Germany
8 p.m.: Canada vs. United States (CBS Sports Network at midnight)
Saturday
1:30 p.m.: Africa vs. United States (CBS Sports Network live)
8 p.m.: Germany vs. Canada
Sunday
1:30 p.m.: Bronze medal game
8 p.m.: Gold medal game (CBS Sports Network live, if UK is playing)
This story was originally published July 12, 2023 at 11:00 AM.
